In Despair by C.P Cavafy

He’s lost him utterly. And from now on he seeks
in the lips of every new lover that he takes
the lips of that one: his. Coupling with every new
lover that he takes he longs to be mistaken:
that it’s the same young man, that he’s giving himself to him.

He’s lost him utterly, as if he’d never been.
Because he wished—he said— he wished to save himself
from that stigmatized pleasure, so unwholesome;
from that stigmatized pleasure, in its shame.
He said there was still time— time to save himself.

He’s lost him utterly, as if he’d never been.
In his imagination, in his vain delusions
in the lips of other youths he searches for his lips;
He wishes that he might feel his love again.